Sunday, October 13, 2013

Despite Peter being very busy with keeping an eye on the construction of the manor house, the new piglets, ducklings and the spring gardening at WBP, I have drafted up plans for a Potting Shed for the Potager for him to build with my grandfather, Noel. Noel did such an amazing job on the pig sty, I know he and Peter will be able to knock up a lovely country potting shed in no time...

I found this photo of a potting shed online, and it is very close to my dream potting shed. I love the steep pitched roof, with the angular, almost gothic door and the mini cupola atop. Our potting shed has been designed to be less than 10 square metres, and portable if required, in order than it meets the county council's building regulations (any larger and a building consent is required). Thus I have come up with the following plans...

Above: Birds eye view of external plan. There is a small gravel rectangle in middle of potager with the 9.88 square metre potting shed at its centre. There are urns/pots on either side of door and on the corners, with a climbing Zephirine Drouhin rose on back wall. There are four cold frames abutting the potting shed on either side.

Below: Internal plan showing benches on 3 sides. Above each bench is a window made up of about 16 small panes of glass. The lids of the cold frames will be made from the same recycled windows used for the shed.

Some inspiring potting sheds...

Above: Windows similar to the ones chosen for our shed.

When I was back in NZ a couple of weeks ago, I flew to Christchurch with Peter and our Godson, who Peter showed around the South Island whilst I was catching up with my mother. We spent a day driving around closed down antique shops (5 of the 6 shops who still advertise as being open after the earthquake were, in fact, closed down). The one which was however open had an amazing range of reconditioned vintage gardening tools. My mum bought me a collection of tools as a belated birthday / early Christmas present. I plan to display them inside the potting shed...

A potting shed looks great with lots of pots and old tools...

It needs a tub as well in which to wash out the pots and water the newly sown seeds and seedlings

It will be painted a pale cream colour on the outside, to match the Dovecote, and the Lutyens Benches, which were originally going to be painted that duck egg blue colour that is popular in provincial French gardens.

Along each side of the potting shed will be cold frames made from old salvaged windows..

1 comment:

Dear David,I like the idea. My Father's potting shed was always filled with interesting gardening things to look at... I think it is a good idea to have the cold frames next to the potting shed - either that or against a wall.Your plans and ideas are making me feel rather wistful!Kirk

Copyright Notice

For all the readers of this blog: the authors of this blog endeavour to their best ability to give proper credit when credit is due to all authors, artists, photographers, and other bloggers to ensure that their intellectual property is recognised.

Whilst all care is taken to ensure any pictures used are in the public domain, or are allowed to be reproduced with credit given, it is possible for genuine mistakes to be made.

Should a picture or other file be published on this blog, which you know it to be your property, please post a comment to that effect, stating whether you wish additional credit to be given to you, or whether you wish the item in question to be removed, and it will be removed as expediently as possible with the sincerest of apologies.

Should you wish to use photographs or other files found on this website belonging to the authors, that is fine. If it is clearly an original photograph of Willowbrook Park, we merely ask that you provide a link to the post where you found the picture.

We hope that with everyone’s co-operation we can continue enjoying blogging courteously, and without any offense caused to any other artist or blogger.